


Alone

by borogravia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4279326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borogravia/pseuds/borogravia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hadnt wanted to drive in the rain but she had known he couldnt be alone tonight. And then the phone went dead.  One-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first piece of fiction I have ever written, fanfic or otherwise. Its a lot harder than blogging reviews of tv shows, books or films! Feedback is welcomed and feel free to tell me if you think its rubbish, just please be polite when you do so! Thanks and I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also I have no beta so any mistakes etc are mine. If anyone fancies the job for future works, or needs a beta themselves, itd be great to hear from you!
> 
> And I obviously dont own any of the characters.

His feet slammed hard on the concrete as he ran, his sodden shoes squelching with every step. The rain collected on his eyelashes and blurred his vision. His jeans were sodden, rivulets of water running down his back under his leather jacket but he didn’t feel it. He was aware of only one thing. Her.

 

_They met on a Saturday. He had volunteered to help his friend, David, move into his new apartment with his fiancé, Mary Margaret. She had volunteered to help her sister, Mary Margaret, move in with her fiancé, David. He climbed out of his car, dressed in his grubbiest, paint-splattered jeans, prepared for the inevitable covering of dust and strode over to the moving van where he was met by an arse. A shapely, denim-clad arse. He may claim to be a gentleman, and usually loosely behaved as so, but he had to admit to himself that this was a highly distracting arse. He didn’t realise he was staring inappropriately until the woman with the shapely rear began to straighten, blushing as he averted his gaze and coughing gently to alert her to his presence._

_“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. You must be David’s friend, Killian. I’m M &M’s sister, Emma” she stated, thrusting a heavy box labelled ‘kitchen’ into his arms before he could reply. Killian, for his part, just gaped. Mary Margaret was a beautiful woman, short and slight with a cute pixie face and green eyes. He had expected her sister to be her equal and he was not disappointed. Slender and pixie-faced, skin flushed and glistening slightly with the exertion of the move, her blonde wavy hair scraped back into a messy ponytail. But unlike Mary Margaret whose sweet and genuine nature was permeated with an undercurrent of steel, Emma’s steel was loud and clear on the surface. Her smile was genial and honest but there was no doubting that this was not a woman to mess with. As he came to this conclusion, he realised he was stood with his mouth open, gaping at her while she kicked out her hip and crossed her arms across her chest smirking. _

_“Like what you see?” she sniggered at him._

_Thankfully, his brain managed to catch his mouth before he embarrassed himself any further._

_“Many things, love, but I suspect our friends would prefer if we didn’t get distracted by more enjoyable activities before their move is completed. Shall we?” he drawled, exaggerating his English accent for effect before winking and leaving with his box. He turned briefly as he walked and knew he caught her inspecting his bum. Smirking slightly, he considered that this had the potential to be the most interesting moving day he had ever been involved with._

His heart pounded as he ran, so hard that, had he been thinking, he might have felt like it would burst in his chest. He only distantly heard David’s shouts to wait and slow down from behind him. He couldn’t wait. He hadn’t been thinking since the second their phone call had gone dead. She hadn’t wanted to drive in the heavy rain, she had done so because she knew he needed her tonight. He hadn’t spent _this_ night alone in 10 years, even before he met her. He had to find her.

 

_It had taken six months of flirtation and sexual tension before David and Mary Margaret got bored and talked them into going on a date. Dinner was filled with easy conversation, they never had any trouble making each other laugh. Their post-dinner stroll along the pier, however, was quiet and full of awkward tension. During dinner, they could ignore their friends’ insistence that their relationship was more meaningful that they were willing to acknowledge but under the moonlight, with the waves in the background, the electricity between them could not go unnoticed. Killian already knew he had been in love with her for a long time. He had been fascinated by her since they met in the back of the moving van, but he knew he loved her when he had seen her with Neil. They had broken up a few years ago and recently Neil had been attempting to regain Emma’s trust. He was a good man, worth forgiving. Killian liked him. Watching him kiss Emma made him want to punch him. Thankfully for Killian, Emma’s significant trust issues had been an issue even prior to Neil’s disappointment and she was not going to be capable of trusting him after his betrayal for a very long time. Killian had been relieved but knew better than to try anything himself until Emma was ready. David and Mary Margaret had taken that time away from her though. She had agreed to their date purportedly to appease their nagging. He knew better than to expect anything but he also wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to needle her and ease the tension._

_“So, love, it appears out date is coming to an end. Traditionally, a date ends with a kiss” he jested, teasing his lower lip suggestively with his teeth and stepping into her personal space._

_“O please, you couldn’t handle it” she challenged._

_“Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle it” he retorted, popping the ‘t’. He knew she didn’t like to step back from a challenge but he didn’t expect her to rise to this one either. But then he caught the look of decision in her eyes and doubted himself for the second she gave him before grabbing the lapels of his leather jacket and pulling his lips down to meet hers._

He couldn’t see her car from the road but he did spot the gap in the hedge running alongside the road. The heavy mud had been agitated by the car’s tyres. There was no sound of emergency vehicles yet though he knew M&M had been calling them as he flew through the door. His feet slipped from under him, sliding in the slick mud, as he turned off the road to follow the car’s path into the ditch and he crashed down to the ground hard. Pain screamed through his hip where he landed and he had probably cut open his palms but he barely noticed. He could see her car now, nose crumpled, engine steaming, rear wheels lifted from the ground with the force of the crash. But he couldn’t see her.

 

_It took a long time for Emma to admit to herself that she really cared for him. Even longer to admit it to Killian. He had known. He had felt it in every kiss, in every sideward glance, every brush of their hands. But, patient though he was, he struggled with watching her push him away every time it seemed like they might actually have something real._

_“I can’t watch you do this again Emma. I can’t watch you hurt yourself, hurt me, because you’re afraid of loving me”_

_“You think that I’m afraid to love you? I’m afraid to lose you, you idiot” Emma flushed red with frustration, at him for doubting her, at herself for admitting something she had never spoken aloud before._

_“The only person I have ever loved who I didn’t lose is Mary Margaret. Every foster family, every boyfriend. Hell even Elsa moved abroad. I care about you too much to lose you too.” Her voice began to quaver with her last words and his heart broke for her as he gathered her into his arms. He knew she had felt so much loss and pain in her life. He had lost so much himself but he handled it so differently. The cocky persona, the women, the rum. Never letting anyone close enough that he could let them down. Until he met Emma._

_“I’m not going anywhere, love. You don’t ever have to be alone again” he murmured into her hair, resting his cheek on the top of her head and gently stroking her back. He could feel the tension in her back slowly start to release as she wrapped her arms around him in return and looked up at him._

_“I want you, Killian. Be patient.”_

Finally, he found her. She had pulled herself from the driver’s seat and was lying at the bottom of the ditch. He was vaguely aware that he was muttering “no, no, no, no, please no”. He could see bruises from her seatbelt blossoming across her chest above her vest top. Shards of glass her embedded in the palms of her hands. Her leg rested at an unusual angle, definitely broken. She was drenched and shivering from the shock and the rain, her hair slick to her scalp. Most seriously, a large gash along her hairline was bleeding profusely and matting her hair. She was unconscious but her eyes began to flicker open slowly as he pulled her onto his lap, his tears dripping onto her cheeks.

“Emma, love, please. Please stay with me sweetheart. Don’t go.”

_It had taken them a long time. Emma had learned to trust him; she learned to let him in and stopped pushing him away. Killian had finally found someone he would never let down. They were happy. He had even told her about that night, the night he couldn’t be alone. The night his brother had been killed. The night Liam had bled to death alone in an alley, stabbed for taking a shortcut home from work. He had never been able to get past it, that his brother has died alone. How afraid must he have been, feeling his life slip away with no one there to comfort him; to hold his hand and reassure him; convince him, however futilely, that everything would be alright. Ever since, Killian had not been able to spend the anniversary of Liam’s death alone. It hadn’t always mattered who he had spent it with, a woman from a bar usually. The first year that Emma had been there for the anniversary, he had worried she would try too hard to distract him; that she would overcompensate. Try to keep him overly busy. Emma, always one to pleasantly surprise him, turned up at his door with a bottle of rum and a pizza. She got quietly drunk with him and then held him to her chest like a child until he fell asleep._

He held her to his chest for what felt like the longest time. He could hear someone screaming for help but it took him a few seconds to realise it was him.

“Somebody help us! SOMEBODY!” his voice coarse and broken, desperate.

“Please hold one Emma, honey, someone will come and help us. Please don’t leave me” he sobbed into her hair.

He could feel her heartbeat under the palm of his hand, resting on her chest as he held her to him. It made his own heart swell with every beat, proof that she was still with him. It made his heart shatter as he felt it get weaker, that she was slowly leaving him. She had saved him from himself. Gave him a reason to be something other than a drunken whore. Helped him begin to forgive himself for not being there for Liam when he needed him most. Why couldn’t be save her?

 

_It had been Emma that had proposed that they move in together. Killian hadn’t wanted to rush her, despite hating that she lived alone in an area that concerned him. She was tough, she didn’t need his concerns about such things but just as her past made it difficult for her to open herself up to risk losing him, his past made it difficult for him to not worry about her being alone if she ever needed him. But he hadn’t want to spook her and so he had waited. When she suggested they find a new place together, he had choked on his coffee in surprise. When they actually moved in together, he felt something he hadn’t felt for a very long time. Like he was whole. It may only be him and Emma but it had been just him and Liam for so long that he didn’t need a whole herd of people to care to feel like he was part of something. They were a family._

 

He could finally hear sirens approaching in the distance. David and Mary Margaret had caught up and he felt Mary Margaret fall to her knees beside him, shaking and held up by David. Emma slowly reached up, her fingers gently brushing the scruff on his cheek, a soft smile on her face, trying to comfort him. Her breathing was short and uneasy, her ribs likely broken, who knows what damage done inside her chest. He knew she didn’t have the strength to speak right now. His own breaths were ragged, panicked, his tears still running down his face but he couldn’t help but smile back at her. He didn’t want her to be afraid.

“It’ll be alright Emma. I’m right here with you.”


End file.
